The Lamentable Error
by DarkestWolfx
Summary: It shouldn't have happened this way. Sometimes mistakes had to be forgiven, but this one would always be too great.
1. Chapter 1

This doesn't have a set place as such, but it's based off the original series, like Waiting out the Storm compared to the new one. Though if you want to read it in the context of the newer series feel free, you may just have to imagine a few things differently.

* * *

Darkness was all that was present, eyes shut or open. Dust drifted around, thick and choking. The ground was harsh and uneven, fragile and unstable. Echoes came from every corner, vibrating off of old beams of steel and being absorbed into shattering concreate walls. Anything could be happening above, but there would be no hints to it down here, down in the depths of solitude and destruction, where no beings dared to walk and those who had…

Rubble tumbled down, small chinks of light filtering in through their dislodged gaps. He breathed in deeper, scarcely breathing at all in fear. He was alone, stuck and completely terrified. His voice had long since given out on him, the most it was able to manage being a strained and strangulated whisper.

His muscles twinged and convulsed painfully, trepidation being the only thing that kept him awake. Minutes felt like hours and the silence that reached him was not comforting in the slightest, instead completely haunting and unsettling. The large corridor was far too expansive now, far too empty and extremely dangerous. There was no shielding down here, only the terror of extremely bad craftsman shift, towering feet high over you, precariously tipping in the wind. The raging fire was stealing the oxygen he needed, selfishly consuming it all to feed its own need. The darkness was smothering, pushing down and threatening him with defeat, suggesting he should give up.

No one was coming down here.

No one unless they were desperate to become trapped themselves, to be forced under in a struggle against nature that was started by man. No one unless they were already aware he was even down there, because goodness knows he couldn't get a hold of _anyone_. The darkness was encouraging the inevitable, the fracturing structure bringing it closer and the crevices of light mocking the lack of escape.

He thought he gasped, but it might have been a sob. Blood dripped over his eyelashes and he strained to keep his eyes open, scared of shutting them, but unhappy to keep them open. The red liquid slipped over his vision and made him feel queasy. He tried to breathe again, but his chest felt constricted, blocked; as though the dust was building up and suffocating him, the slave to the darkness carrying out its silent threat.

He tried to stay still as larger rocks began to tumble down, but he wanted to move, his mind was screaming at him to move even though his body was fighting the command. If he didn't move soon he wouldn't be able to. Looking up was his only option from his practically fitted position, like a perfectly carved body suit.

He couldn't do this any longer. The world above him wouldn't stay forever and he didn't want to be awake when he came crashing down.

So he shut his eyes.

* * *

"John, anything?"

"Sorry Virgil, all signals are negative." It really wasn't the answer he wanted to give. What he would give was anything to be down there, fully able to help other than his pitching in when they called. He would trade any of his knowledge on the current happenings of the world to be there, in full possession of the knowledge concerning his family's event filled world. Though at times like this he found himself wishing it wasn't so. "Are you certain they went in?"

"Completely." Virgil answered surely, yet solemnly. "We all did."

"Why didn't they come out with you?"

"We were separated, I radioed them, but they obviously didn't receive it."

The stargazer was wracking his brains for a solution which they desperately needed, but his mind was failing him, falling short at the final hurdle, the last leg. "Is there any way you can go and look?" He was desperate for them to do so, because he had to know his younger brothers were alright, or… otherwise: whatever form that took.

"We're investigating that now…"

"We need to get down there immediately."

"Sir, that's not protocol."

"I don't care about your protocols!"

Virgil turned from the conversation, knowing how it was likely to end if his brother used the ire he stored. "But it's not looking too good. We've got no direct way in."

"Let me know when you find one." _When_ , not _if_. Virgil just hoped that was something they could deliver. John relied on them for every piece of information regarding their own welfare, and he rarely liked to believe they couldn't or wouldn't make it through something. It was what kept him able to wait for so long up there in the depths of space. That, and his extremely calm nature.

 _'Find a way,'_ After all there had to be one.

* * *

The dust had settled like snow, covering the dangers hidden below like ice. Above, the fiery rage towered like a threat, the red wisps warning them away. The space mocked them like a child winning hide and seek, a trivial thing, a game to be played in safety not disaster.

Because this was disaster. A major one.

Yet one that could have been avoided, one that was needless if some could work to the very meaning of the word. All the Thunderbirds had been designed and built properly making it very difficult for Virgil to see how anyone could mess that up with a tower block. Or at least mess it up so badly that everything ended up wired incorrectly, meaning the slightest ignition to the gas and flick of an electric switch sparked an inferno more deadly than an oil fire at sea.

"Scott, do you read me?"

"Reading you John."

"The weather reports look as though it's definitely gonna' come in worse."

"How long have we got?"

"I wouldn't say you've got time to spare." He didn't need to. If the weather was making a slow approach, it wouldn't stop the flames from licking up what was now theirs; and if the weather came in quicker, the building would hardly be making a sluggish decent. Either way, they were fighting against time, and they all knew from experience that could be one of the trickiest parts of their jobs.

"Thanks John, we'll bare it in mind." Virgil had gained ground on Scott by the time he finished talking to John, looking around desperately, the torch light flitting between one side and the other.

"Gordon? Alan?" Sounds came back like boomerangs, boomerangs that seemed to travel the longest of distances at the quickest of paces. The bright beams of light from their torches were doing very little, aided slightly by the spot on their helmets, but none gave view of the necessary sight, the sought sight: the prize.

The shriek he pulled from his throat was shill and animalistic, coming from a depth unknown with a volume not even the wrath could douse, "Alan!"

The youngest Tracy was buried in settled dust, surrounded by a collection of rocks that had pooled around him. Immediately Virgil was attempting to move them away to create a space in which he could get close enough.

"Is he alright?"

"Space, Scott." It seemed too constricted, there was too much around them, far too much to be content with and floods continuing to topple down. Rains of rocks flew onto them like magnets, covering them in the ever increasing dust. Soon they would be followed by the touches of flames and that would be followed by everything residing overhead, all of it in one surge – a finality.

He wasn't watching were Scott went afterwards, only that he mentioned something about 'having found Alan'. He had to be talking to John, because he stopped talking a moment later. Their patriarch would have asked further questions, but the communications expert (no matter how many he was desperate to ask), would wait. The eldest knelt opposite him after moment and started to help.

"I don't reckon we've got long, Virgil."

"We'll make it." Scott wasn't too sure. It was shadowed in the fallen hall, murky from the streaks of dust floating down from the breaking construction above. Their basic first aid training palled in comparison to having a doctor with them. The services had made it very clear that if they did feel obliged to go in, they were their own responsibilities.

"He doesn't look too good."

"It's stuffy down here. Did we bring any oxygen?" Virgil pulled his head up from his work to look at the pilot who seemed incredibly uncomfortable.

"I didn't think." A steel gantry shifted behind them, the cracks of light minutely increasing, the heat coming closer as it whittled away the fodder provided by the faulty scaffold. The wind had picked up, the bad weather John promised having finally hit. The rain would do little for the fire, but the change in wind would only aid it. With every passing moment it seemed to come further in, hanging over them suggesting the impending end. When it eventually appeared that the last rubble had fallen for now, Virgil released a breath he had been unaware he was holding.

"I'll find Gordon." Scott told him as he pulled himself to his feet. "Can you manage?" Words escaped him, but Scott seemed to understand before he started off. Virgil finally managed to create a space for himself to sit close enough to his brother, checking him over for visible injuries. The cut on his head had congealed with a layer of dust, but other than that he was unscathed to the eye. The floor above creaked mockingly and Virgil tried not to look around, knowing it wouldn't do any good. If the building collapsed now, they would have no hope of getting out and John would be left to tell father… he shook his head. Thoughts like that were only a hindrance at a time like this.

"Alan, can you hear me?" The silence from both Alan and the blaze was a worry and Virgil was unsure what he preferred. The abrupt stillness was dangerous. It meant there was no warning, no telling signs and he secretly feared that. "Come on kiddo."

Alan's eyelids flicked, opening slowly, blinking back the small quantities of flickering light. "V… Virgil?" He sounded groggy and was beginning to look shaky.

"Yeah. Are you alright?"

"Something's digging into my back, by my shoulders."

"Okay, hold on." He could almost believe he was turning into a mole with the amount of digging he was practically doing as he pulled and shoved the fallen rocks and concreate blocks away from his brother's side. "Sit up, steady." Carefully he helped Alan up before stopping him as he noticed the jagged rock which had fallen under the younger. Alan coughed as he lowered him back down, wary of what unseen damage could be done. Alan took a sharp intake of breath and looked to him with unfocused eyes.

"Better?" The younger nodded, though the gesture was only just visible.

"Are we… gonna' go home?"

"Yeah."

"You're not sounding very convincing."

Virgil quickly regained his serious tone knowing they were very short on time and Scott had given him nothing to say he had located the aquanaut. "Alan, do you know where Gordon is?"

"He was ahead of me. Said something about going up stairs."

"Alan?" The younger's eyes were beginning to roll, his head dropping. "No, you have to stay awake. Alan, stay awake." He wanted to scream at him, yell however loud he needed to in order for the astronaut to hear him. He would rip his throat roar for his words to have the power of keeping his brother awake. A growl seemed to pull from his throat as Alan ignored his orders.

"Scott, see if you can locate the stairs." He should have said what was the stairs. Scott's affirmative came back to him before the gritty buzz across the abandoned radio line. Whilst he waited, he lightly shook the blonde's shoulder, but the contact had no success in waking him.

"Damn."

He was glad when the radio crackled back to life. "Virgil, I've got him. The stairway at the end of the corridor, to your left."

"That's good, Scott. I'll let John know." He took a deep breath before calling Thunderbird Five. "John, we've got Gordon as well."

"Great, now get out of there."

"We will as soon a-"

"Just get out Virgil." He'd been listening in, he had to have been. John had been doing exactly that. The radio reports given by the service men to their superiors were within his grasp, so he'd taken complete advantage of that. They may be wrong, but he doubted how much they would be when the building was a complete shambles. It was going to come down and if they didn't move, it would be on top of them.

The bluntness in John's voice was alarming. He was always calm, and the things which caused John to lose that state of being had to be severe.

"I'll tell Scott." It was the only answer Virgil gave over the line. There were none which really fitted the situation. "Could you update dad?" They both knew they translated to _'I don't want to'_ , but they took it as _'I don't have time to'_. Virgil was shying away for a reason, a reason John guessed was a simple as _'he didn't know'_. Virgil liked to know what they were dealing with, it's part of why he made such a good follow up to Scott, because then he'd know and he'd think of something. And if he couldn't, Brains certainly would.

"FAB."

"Virgil." Scott had heard the last exchange of words between the second and third brothers. Virgil remained completely unaware of his presence during the last moments of the conversation, and maybe part of him was glad of that.

"Where's Gordon?" It was the first question – quite rightly too, but Scott had hoped he wouldn't have to answer it.

"We can't risk moving him." He'd heaved the rubble out of the way only to find it gave him no help. Gordon was sprawled on the floor, a bone protruding through the flesh of his leg. From the angle, Scott guessed he'd tumbled down the stairs and landed on his back. It was that he hated to think of. Gordon struggled enough the first time, however now he had a weakness there, one that was vulnerable to the threats some International Rescue operations posed to it.

"We have to." Virgil didn't want to, but nor did he want to lose a brother.

"I'll get a stretcher." The younger looked around quickly, realising that was something he'd forgot to bring.

"Hurry." The retreating pounds of sprinting steps were enough to confirm the eldest was doing just that, but time played as their constant enemy, one who would never face them other than with the most taunting of monotonous ticks. Every second was another wasted moment, every sound was a possible hope, though all were shot down in a string of mockery.

 _'Not now, not ever.'_ The wind mocked them, aiding their enemy.

"Not now." He barely knew he who was speaking to any more. The people he wanted to answer him would not, could not, maybe never would again? He tried not to think along those lines as he began to clean the wound marring Alan's forehead. Luckily it didn't seem deep.

"We can't lose you," Oh, how much it would damage the fragile family beneath the façade. "Not ever."

Their father might not cope with losing any of them. He'd told them he had a bad feeling about this one after they took off and asked them to keep in contact with him. Goodness knows what the wait was currently doing to his nerves, calmed possibly by Kyrano's coffee, yet still frantic enough to frazzle some out and take years of the patriarch's life.

The gantry's started moving again, swinging precariously with the exposed cables from their misplaced posts and continuing naked flame from above, knocking off the unsettled stones and lumps of concreate. Their dislodgement caused disturb within the whole structure, upper levels tumbling down upon him. The cascade of shrapnel was rough, strong and relentless. Virgil looked down, making an effort to keep his eyes away from the particles of grit. As the tumult continued he became aware of the direct weakness above them. Leaning forward he tried to shield Alan as much as possible, some of the jagged, broken bricks rebounded off his helmet, sharper chunks cutting through his uniform. It felt like hours had dragged past when all settled, though still he remained where he was, agonisingly waiting in case anything else slipped from its instable hold.

He breathed through the lump in his throat as he lent back and revelled in the silent break, taking the time to finish temporally dressing the wound on Alan's head. It was easier not to think of the mass storeys above, nor of the mass amount of materials which had been put towards the construction of the height. That said, it was difficult not to. His hands were swimming in dust. Almost everywhere you moved there was grit to seep through open fingers. Almost everywhere you looked there were cascades of rubble and the intense heat was trawling closer. He tried to keep himself focussed, thinking of the rough granules as grains of sand. By thinking of the palm trees and the unrestricted breeze, rather than the stodgy atmosphere here. He tried to picture the sun, whilst at the side of the pool against the ever-worsening inundation they faced.

It was a serene image. Home was always easy to long for when it was the one thing you were missing. It was the one thing that was so effortless to remember when you were struggling to picture anything else. Just like family, it was a part of you, it was something you were drawn to come back to. And that was what they did: come back. Sometimes there were no smiles, no joke at some fools expense, but they _always_ came back, they _always_ came home - _all_ of them.

He didn't see it. Grains of sand had become sands of time. He's been too absorbed in thinking, too off-point to have even heard the movement, and there was no way he could have sensed it. He didn't see it, and he should have.

All of them had sharpened reflexes thanks to this job. All of them were agile enough to move at the bark of orders or the snap of fingers. He moved, the blocks and rubble missing him, and thankfully Alan, but the move was jagged, rushed and off balance. His elbow smashed into the wall, shocks running up through his muscle and sparks leaping through his veins, followed by a stream of cussing their father would have reprimanded him for. Right now, it was the only thing that held him back from the desire to howl. But he had to think. What would Scott think if he heard him? What would Alan think if he woke? And what would cross Gordon's mind if he should wake and hear the animalistic cries?

He tried not to contemplate the disaster that could have been, or what releases screaming would allow. He endeavoured to block out the main, but the receptors of his body refused to listen. In a strange sense, he was glad of it. The pain was sharp and strong enough to keep him awake, to keep him firmly planted in the here and now, completely aware and focussed. It kept him grounded in the oddest of ways.

A broken bone for a broken family.

They should have tried to bring the Firefly down. It would have offered some protection, some aid to the desperate mess, but the time it might have taken to clear a way suitable - and in this weather - could have finished it before it even began.

The time between Scott's going and his return seemed agonisingly long, far too long and deprived him of any conscious company. Scott returned with another few sets of footsteps that Virgil would have missed had he not been listening out for signs of the building's crumbling. The further shifts in the building would not be unknown to him on any accounts. He refused to let himself be distracted again.

"Virg, what happened?"

"The building decided we needed more problems."

"Sure you didn't decide to try and tussle with it?" Scott didn't do joking during missions. In fact, he rarely did so at all. The only times he ever used such a tone when they were working was when he was becoming nervous, when he was beginning to feel trapped and facing the pressure of the situation. It happened rarely and its sudden rearing now was enough to transfer to Virgil was he must have seen from the outside view. Then, as quickly as it appeared, the tone was replaced with his normal field commander attitude, the orders that beneath them held every piece of mind-boggling concern. "Seriously, are you alright?"

He chose not to answer that question. "The building's coming down, fast."

"Okay, how are we doing?"

"We can move him, but he's not regained conscious again." That should have been screaming danger at them, staring them point blank in the face with one thing after another. A twist, then a turn, then a stab; a painful one to stick right in their hearts, a knife too deeply rooted to be removed.

"And you?"

He hated how Scott could think of what he viewed as a trivial injury at a time like this. "I'll manage."

"I'll get Gordon."

"No." Virgil called suddenly, stopping Scott in his tracks before he'd succeeded in running a fair distance away. "I won't be able to carry Alan."

It made complete sense, though the thought hadn't even occurred to Scott. "Right, you go with them and get Gordon, I'll take him."

"FAB." It was a whisper if it could even warrant to be called that. Virgil disappeared into the distance with the two men Scott had managed to get to follow them down and assist. He could see what Virgil meant as knelt beside his youngest sibling. The crumbling mess was coming ever closer and they really didn't have much time. The overcast sky was becoming visible as the roof was pulled apart by the flames, the skylight making for a nice view if the weather wasn't horrendous and the situation tragically perilous.

"Come on, Kiddo." He wasn't quite sure why he was speaking. Alan was outright dead to the world and there was no one else to hear him. He supposed it was to calm his own nerves. It wasn't doing a very successful job. The heat was getting to him now and he knew exactly what the increase meant: it wasn't a good sign to say the least. The baby of the family looked pale and despite his normal resilience, Scott feared how much of that could be kept in this predicament. Virgil thought he was alright to move and Scott believed that too from what he could see, yet he only hoped their first aid skills hadn't missed anything major. _'Alan would have said'_ , he kept telling himself. In those brief moments of consciousness he had, he would have said. "You've got to stay with us."

Carefully he lifted the other into his arms, shifting his weight as he stood to keep Alan in the best possible position, cradling him in his grasp like he had when the blonde was only a baby. He felt just as fragile now, just as damageable and Scott feared everything he had when their mother had first allowed them the privilege of holding the last Tracy child: the child who was a male version of her, the one who Scott always thought it would kill dad to lose for that precise reason.

The near invisible flakes were heavy like mist as he looked down the corridor in hopes of seeing his artistic brother. "Virgil!" He hated the way the echo brought his call back answerless.

"Go, we're right behind you."

"I'll wait."

"Don't be stubborn, go!" Arguing would get them nowhere now so he gritted his teeth and caved for once, vowing to himself he'd get Alan out before coming back in if they weren't _"right behind him"_ like Virgil had promised. It had to be a promise for a reassurance was useless. They were small, feeble things that meant nothing compared to a promise, a word one to abide to no matter what attempted to break it. They were tensile lines which could stretch any distance and still make it in one piece.

They were the only thing which Scott could believe in right now, the only thing he could put any trust and hope in. It would be a conviction to which the brothers would have to stick with, one Scott would hold the younger to.

The rain outside hadn't let up, if anything it had got worse just like a parallel to their own situation. The access the emergency crews had managed to create for them was terrible to begin with, though now the constant torrent had made it treacherously slippy. As the building crumbled, the narrow path decreased in size and Scott knew if they didn't get out of the way quickly, they'd be buried beneath it.

He hated how the fire chief stood waiting. He'd been desperate to keep them out of the building in the first place and it was only by pulling rank with a few possible threats that managed to sway the decision. Even then it had been with full reluctance. His team could have worked faster, for Scott was sure he could have done so, though that steam of thoughts only prompted him to think that the man had every intention of keeping them out even if the way to do so was to time waste. The basement had been treated no differently to any other danger zone by the services, but to them it was the only one that mattered.

It was stupid. It was stupid how ignorant they'd been. He'd never forgive himself for that. If he lost anyone today, he wouldn't forgive himself. They'd felt the building shake and left, but they should have noticed sooner the younger weren't following them, they just should have. Scott shouldn't have held back. He should have run back in – thinking back now he wasn't sure what stopped him or why he didn't do so – or at the very least radioed straight away to find where they were. If only the skills that made him good for the first responder job hadn't abandoned him in those most crucial seconds.

If only the building had been built properly, the floor wouldn't have given way so easily. The whole situation would never have occurred and they would be at home, sat by the pool with Gordon and Tin-Tin splashing water at them until they conceded to throw down whatever they were reading or abandon any games to jump in and join them.

Instantly he blanked the hands that reached towards him and the figures which motioned for him to hand Alan to them as though they were the monstrous demons which plagued the minds of children. Right now, his baby brother was the one thing he was not letting go off, whether it made the small steep difficult to climb or not didn't matter.

He looked back with a sharp eye, seeking any sign of the blue uniform and coloured sashes - any sign of his two remaining brothers.

"Stand clear." He was feeling sick now, a pit of dread having established itself firmly within his stomach. His feet refused to move, half of his brain instructing him that it made sense, the other half yelling at him that it made none. Alan's light weight was the only thing keeping him secured to the ground, the only thing that logically told him he couldn't go back in. The burning glow had shifted its way down within metres of the ground. The structure wobbled, final remains of glass flying towards them as the fire destroyed their supports. His hands had started to shake, trembling through to the nerves as he unconsciously tightened his grip on Alan.

"Come on, Virgil." The words quickly became his unspoken mantra, his desperate plea to see them emerge from the pit.

"Scott?" Alan pulled his focus, his voice a meek and wavering sound. Alan was hardly conscious, his eyes heavy and fighting to keep open.

"You're okay." He had nothing else to say. It might not be true, but he didn't feel he could say nothing. Alan was looking at him with doe eyes, blinking like he'd been caught in headlights before his comprehension seemed to return to him and he shifted to try and break free. Scott refused to let go, fighting until Alan settled. Though it seemed like too much time had passed since he adverted his eyes to his brother, the clock hands hadn't rushed by. He wouldn't have had the time to go in and out again. Alan would have been alone, surrounded by strangers and a complete mess when those strangers smashed his heart without even knowing why.

Because no one could ever understand International Rescue the way they did. It was their blood, their memorial, their heritage and family line which none outside that close circle could ever truly understand. They would never know they were brothers. They wouldn't think how close the team could be in that respect, only that they saved lives and came to call. And why wouldn't they? They didn't tell anyone, they didn't imply it. They just knew and knowing for them was enough. No one else needed to know for the sake of newspaper and magazine trivia.

Alan's sudden grip on him brought him back from somewhere he didn't know he'd even gone to. It brought him back to awareness of clouded eyes and misted thoughts of this and that and nothing of importance. The younger reflected himself back at him, emotions running high in force like the rain reaching down to meet them. Through the tears he been unable to hold, he couldn't see what he wanted. He could feel Alan shake his head and tighten his grip again until his nails were digging into Scott's skin. He'd become a lifeline now. Letting go would mean accepting much more than either of them wanted to, than either of them felt able to.

For the building finally came down, and with it, their hearts.

* * *

More, or no?


	2. Chapter 2

Here's part two. I'm glad I had some of this penned out before I uploaded part one, so hopefully those of you with hearts in turmoil, haven't had too long to wait.

I just want to say I've never lost a brother, but I do have experience with grief (as I'm sure many of you do), so I hope reactions here seem true. The reactions here are only some examples though, but there are many different ways to react to grief.

* * *

"No." The wind carried away the barely breathed word, the anguish it should have held falling on deaf ears. If he hadn't been holding Alan, he would have collapsed. The weight of the younger was all that held him. Sounds were vibrations; noises incomprehensible. The light was playing tricks with his eyes and the weather beating him further down if it was possible.

"Virgil? Gordon?" Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes and his mind refused to form the words he was seeking, the words he _never_ wanted to think let alone say. He didn't need to. Alan worked it out for himself, his sobs catching in his throat as he struggled with a thing called belief before he buried his head into Scott's shoulder. The raw tone of the younger's words would never be erased from his mind. The way he'd spoken the names of his elder brothers still with some sense of hope – a sense of hope Scott had crushed.

He hadn't needed to say anything to do it.

Alan's nails clawed at his back, digging deep into his flesh. The younger's weak grip was increasing, becoming stronger and stronger until Scott wondered how blood was still reaching his arm. Alan's body racked with sobs in his grasp and Scott attempted to swallow the tumour in his throat that was the thought of loss. He let his legs give in in the end, covering for their failure as best as he could by slowly lowering himself to the ground. He sat there for what seemed like hours. The rain bounced from them, coating each of them in a layer of invisible silver, licking their hair and catching their eyelashes.

The light rocking was like a cooing, a lullaby which was having no effect upon either of them. The sky was dark, a plume of flames and sparks, lights and vapour. All around them it was like no man's land. No one trod near them, no one made near the rubble of the fallen tower as the flames endeavoured to leap across the ground, to travel further and do more damage than they already had.

"Alan." Twitches of pain ran through his nerves now. Sensations were dull, fading as though his body was falling asleep, though the vulture like grip was clear to him, the only clarity he held in the world being the fifth Tracy, the youngest Tracy. "Alan, let go." It was a selfish request. He couldn't expect Alan to let go of the only other thing he had. He couldn't expect it and he couldn't ask it.

Besides, the pain was bittersweet.

A small distraction from something equally as terrible, a small distraction from something tons worse. A poignant action which only added to the agony of the tragedy which was the past night.

"It's okay." Alan's grip had slacked, so he encouraged it to pick up again. "Hold on to me." The truth was, he needed Alan to. He needed to feel the pressure for so many reasons. He needed it, because it helped. It reminded him of what he still had and it harked back to him of what he had before that he'd now lost – what he wanted back and still needed.

What they all still needed.

The crackling of the radio reminded him of something. The interference buzzed and flicked, attempting to mask the worried words of the stargazer, the one brother not able to see the fiery pit of destruction and despair he was stuck staring at. He'd tried averting his gaze, but he couldn't, his eyes just would not change directions even to look at Alan.

"Scott, are you alright?" Words weren't forming in his mind. He was nodding, however John couldn't see that. "Scott? Scott, can you hear me?"

It was Alan who brought him back to the world, just as it was Alan who was holding him to it. "John."

Finally Scott could look at him, the blue orbs filled with crystal droplets. He had to look away. He had to look away because he refused to cry. His mind was screaming at him to answer, Alan was asking him to answer, and so eventually, finally he did.

"John." He hoped his voice sounded stronger than it did mentally. "I can hear you."

"You made it out." It was a statement. It broke his heart that John believed him capable of saving their siblings. If only it had been a question. He may then have been able to stomach the response he'd have to give. Though he didn't give it. John would figure it out, he was smart enough and knowledgeable enough – especially when it came to his brothers - to be able to figure out that he was stalling, that he was clinging onto the last straws he could.

"I've got Alan." That was his confirmation of everything John could have been wondering, but still the other Tracy was holding onto the same straws he was.

"But, you made it out?"

"I'll let you know." He'd had an idea, a sudden sparks ignition like a bolt of lightning coursing through a tree. An idea was all he knew it was likely to be, but he was going to try. International Rescue: _'never give up at any cost'_. So he wasn't about to start now. It should have been difficult to rush through so much chaos, but he managed it like a horse galloping through no man's land: barbed wire catching his legs and death surrounding him. And just like war, it was destruction that should never have occurred. Thunderbird Two was a safe place. No harm could come to Alan there, that he could be assured of. Still, he placed him far enough in to be out of everyone's way, just to be sure.

There was no one here he trusted, no face to recognise and fall into, just foxes found in their places. The only faces he wanted to see were miles away. Miles away with no quick way to get here. Sometimes it seemed like they were poles apart, whether they were deep in the north or far in the south, Tracy Island was at the contradicting extreme.

The blonde seemed so far away, so distant, as though he was unaware Scott was there anymore. He didn't know what made him say it. But something did. Some nagging voice in his head spoke, insisted he say something, say he would.

"I'll come back."

"Don't lie to me." His already broken heart had just fractured. Alan's eyes were like a sea. A sea someone was trying to restrict with a dam, but one which was still over flowing. The younger had been crying all this time, and he'd blanked it out. He chastised himself for that, and he chastised himself for the next words he spoke.

"I'm not lying."

"Virgil said we were going home." Did he now? Scott wished to the moon and back that he hadn't.

"We will." Scott didn't know how literally Alan took him on that use of _'we'_.

Virgil would kill him if he damaged the paintwork. Scott would kill Virgil if… No. He'd kill himself for thinking that. He didn't know what he was doing. The heat was frying whatever thought train he'd been following and he no longer knew which end linked to what beginning.

He doubted Alan did either.

* * *

International Rescue was finished.

This was the end of the great organisation and the start of a plan to never leave the Island again for as long as he lived. That was the only end and beginning he could work out. The only one which could possibly ever come lose to filling the mass incomprehensible void spreading through his life.

He pulled his knees to his chest, allowing his head to rest upon them. Thunderbird Two was silent. Too silent. Thunderbird Two wasn't his. It wasn't right that he sat there, in the solace when its owner – who loved it so dearly – could no longer. Outside, there was nothing but shouting. Alan didn't need to be out there to know what he'd see, and he didn't need to be able to hear them clearly to know what they'd be saying. But none of that matter. The only thing that matter had been pulled out from under him with no marked road for return. The world he knew was spinning wrong. The axis was tilted out of whack and he wasn't sure if it was possible to reverse it. The stars were dwindling and the moon waning.

Alan wondered if John was watching them too.

* * *

John had never craved for anything. He loved the stars, but never had he desired to be among them, until his father offered it as a possibly. Yes, it had been a thought, a childhood wonder, but never something he imagined would come true.

Now, he wanted something.

Now he wanted the feel of Earth beneath his feet, the haze of trapped heat in the Island jungle, the spray from the beachside waves, the breeze of the soughing trees and the echoes of laughter from the pool. He desired to be with those beneath him, he desired to walk through the underground crevices and smell the various oils and fuels left around. He ached to be there, to be home, and yet he longed to stay here – in peace: paradise away from paradise.

He yearned for the first time in his life.

He yearned for his brothers, every one of them. He yearned to see their smiling faces or sad glances, he yearned to see their bright eyes or drained senses, he yearned for his family and wanted them. He sought after the need to see them to settle his utter disbelief. It _couldn't_ have happened. It _didn't_ happen. It _never_ happened.

Not to them.

* * *

Hours had dragged past when he finally saw light again. Worn down like rubbed rock. This would be one of those rescues he'd never get out of his mind, except there was a difference. This would be the _one_. Nothing came close in comparison: they were all forgettable.

The Firefly was a brilliant invention.

It was one he would thank now until the day he died. At least it allowed for something of their own to bury. Something to bury in their own way, place and time, not the bottom of some fiery and faulty pit of destruction.

He thought it a curtsey to bring up the bodies of the two men he had managed to persuade to aid them, only doing so because he thought they had the time. He really had believed they could do it, as International Rescue _never_ failed: _they_ never failed. He'd slipped - allowed himself to start believing they were invincible, when they were purely mortal.

 _Human_.

Names on lists had crosses placed next to them. The odd tick or two came for those who had been elsewhere, vacant of the building and absent from the disaster. The lucky ones (Scott named them), for choosing this night, of all nights. He didn't care about their lists: he had his own, and it had just shortened.

He was tired. His step had turned into an aching trudge, requiring every chunk of effort he could muster. It was distressing him, and that was making him nervous. Those very nerves were making him feel sick to his stomach, those nerves were forcing his mind to worry unconditionally, those nerves were the only thing keeping him going; his motivation, his vitality and the only source he could find. The only one he knew. The closer he got to the green Thunderbird, the more it occurred to him that he wasn't feeling sick, but hollow, like a tree struck by a bolt of lightning to leave nothing but an excavated structure.

His head needed clearing. His mind needed wiping. An image had been etched into it, one that would never be removed, leaving the longest lasting and most painful scar of his life. A red cut line to remind him of _how_ he lost them, not just _who_. He'd never forget who, but he would give anything to slip up on the how.

The rain didn't bother him now. The weather was all forgotten amongst the rabble of demons clawing at his skull, digging their way in.

He'd never forget anything about this day, just as he'd never forget his brothers. However if someone told him to talk about it, he knew his mind would close up, his thoughts would abandon him and the only thing there would be images. Unexplainable images to some _stranger_ who could _never_ understand.

No, he _couldn't_ talk, but he could _do_ something.

Now, he was going to bring them home, through hell and high-water. He was going to bring them home, because it was where they belonged.

But was it where he fitted?

He couldn't register his mind. Scott Tracy's thoughts seemed lost to him, almost distant. But if he wasn't Scott Tracy, who was he? Who could he be? It was too far to return to the US Airforce, and it was far too late to give the order that they could… no, would not help this time. It was too late to be Scott Tracy. It was unfathomable, because if he was himself, he had to face what he'd done.

He had to accept what he'd lost.

And that, he could never do.

* * *

Everything was buzzing; loudly like someone felt the need to blare over a loudspeaker. His hands flew to his ears, wanting to block it out, but still it seeped through as blood from a wound. He wanted to go home, back to where everything made sense, where nothing required concentration. He wanted to fall asleep and pretend he' dreamt it, just like children do. He'd wake up at home and all would be well. His father would tell him, _'you were dreaming Alan.'_

 _'None of it was real, it was just a dream. We're all fine, we're all still here.'_

He _would_. Alan _knew_ he would.

He could hear him now: every word, each syllable…

Light breaths caught and heavy breaths pulled at his rib cage, straining as though they hadn't enough room. At least they _had_ air.

He knew what it was like to be deprived of it. He wondered what it was like to _lose_ it – _permentantly_.

His veins had turned ice-blue, the very idyllic of the sea taunting him, knowing what he would give to be out there fishing, with Gordon laughing at his lack of skill, or to be splashing in the pool without concern. Uncontrollably, his hands shook and trembled as though sparks were coursing through his blood. The limbs were scarcely feelable, his head line a taut string, all of him numb to the core, as his pounding heart was, the thumps of its rhythm offset. If he could have done something, it would have been different. If he could have done more to never let it happen. If he could have just said what he thought… If he'd said that and said no.

Said no, and meant it. Yes, people would have died, of course they would, but not the ones he cared for.

Alan had a heart of gold.

That's what his family said. Always putting others first, always doing his job.

He had a heart of gold and emotions of disorder. Both of which could be so easily triggered, both of which were fragile sheets of glass waiting for someone to smash through them.

And now, both of them were in turmoil.

* * *

He'd been talking to the stars.

He'd been trying to send messages across them, to find a way to communicate, but it wasn't working. Text books had long since been strewn away, but this time, were unlikely to be picked up again. No longer did he feel like writing for the world. He'd write for himself. He'd rewrite time for all of them… and he could do it. They did the impossible all the time.

He _could_ do it.

He had to believe he could, anyhow.

"I've got them." The small broadcast comment was his consolation. The only one though, for that was as good as an assurance of everything he knew. But he _had_ to ask. He _needed_ to know and his mind compelled him to be sure.

"Virgil, Gordon, they…" This wasn't real. If this was real… if this was real, he was lost. "They're dead?" The silence told him everything. Everything - how, when, where, like a story had been painted before his eyes. Not a children's story though: a Grimm's tale of the grimmest type.

"John-"

"I'll tell dad." He should have told the patriarch sooner, but he made an agreement with whoever was listening – the conformation he was slowly losing his marbles. He made a deal to say nothing until he knew everything.

And now he did.

Now he had to tell their father, tell everyone so far away from the entirety of it that they'd been wrong. That they'd failed. That they'd failed _their_ family overall, not some strangers.

"Hello son, what's the news?" John wondered if he'd imagined the slight hope with which the man answered his call. He knew it couldn't have really been there. Jeff Tracy worried during missions. But maybe… maybe he'd committed himself to hoping that no news was good news.

Maybe. And now it was ending.

"Father, I need to talk to you."

It could have gone better if it had been talking. He should have been able to say it, rather than cracking. The words didn't need to come from his mouth. His father recognised the news and mentioned something about bringing him home. He didn't take it in, because he didn't have the capacity in his mind to enable him to do so. He'd lost all abilities to function as a human being in those few moments, in those few seconds of facing a man who wanted to believe his sons were coming home, in those few seconds of facing _his father_ who had been hoping for more.

Facing the man who _believed_ in them all, only to let him down.

Some brainwave must still have been functioning as it programmed his hand to flick the switch for any incoming calls. Programmed his every action to the very point of getting up and walking away, all the way down to wiping at his eyes.

Part of him was glad he was alone, for it meant none could see his weakness.

Part of him was glad he was used to being lonely; because now he most certainly would be.

* * *

His cool head told him to stay sat, to ask for more details and work something out. His paternal side, told him to get out there and do something. His human instincts told him to cry.

Kyrano and Tin-Tin were saying something to him, however he couldn't register what. Tin-Tin left after a moment, Kyrano remaining silently at his side. His eyes strayed to the pictures of Virgil and Gordon, his mind conjuring questions and his subconscious throwing in answers. Answers he wanted to throw back out.

"Is there anything you need, Mr Tracy?" Yes. Yes, he needed his sons: all five of them. He needed them home, in flesh and blood, not photos. He needed his family back with him, because he hated them being away. He needed his family, because he'd already lost too much of it.

He had five sons, _not_ three. He'd always have _five_ sons.

But only three were coming home. Only three.

Was it wrong to want all five? Was it wrong to think what he would trade for their lives? Was it wrong to want the dead?

That was – in a sense – what had led to this. The beginnings of this very moment was created from his idea. His idea that people could be saved, maybe not everyone, but some. It started from his hope that people didn't have to stare danger in the face and lose, from his idea that his sons could change the way disaster worked and bring something constructive from it. From his idea of International Rescue: from his creation, from his orders.

And this was what it gave him.

Not everyone could be saved – they all knew that, but it wasn't meant to end like this.

Morning would be rising in London. The sun would be approaching his sons to shine something on their grief, if the rain ever let up. And here, the moon made its appearance, drawing towards them with every event his sons had seen as though as natural satellite to relay what he couldn't know. Like a natural, forsaken connection.

One that was now cut off for good.

* * *

Everyone was in anguish.

Scott wondered how many of them - gathering around the emergency services like bees and honey, just to be told exactly what they already knew - could recall the face of their loved one. Could recall a genuine smile or a tear. It was wrong, but their grief meant nothing to him and he didn't even consider it such. No one could feel worse than this. He was one person, and the only person his mind could register the feelings of. Gone were the days the brothers would be doing their best to calm and comfort these people, to reunite them with someone or to take their mind from it.

Gone were the days.

The home of both missing brothers called to him. The only place that seemed safe here beckoned him to come closer. His mind pulled his thoughts and his nerves dragged his eyes away from gazing round. Alan was where he left him, folded in on himself.

Thunderbird Two was a safe place.

Alan didn't even blink as he sat down beside the younger, touching a hand to his sweat laced forehead and feeling for the racing pulse within his wrist.

Shock.

He should have thought sooner. He should have recognised it sooner, returned sooner. All these things he could have done, all the endless what-ifs that made up life, the never ending sequence of regrets which piled higher and higher until you were suffocated under them. Just like being buried beneath storeys high worth of buildings.

It was hot outside. Despite the thunder and streams of rain, the flames had added heat to the city's already smouldering complexes. Thunderbird Two was cold. The engines had been off for so long that there wasn't even a sliver of warmth from them. The metal was like frost to the touch and it may as well be snowing. Alan was cold.

He was as cold as stone.

Yet the astronaut was warm, all of it dripping from him.

Opposites raging within one person. Strange combination. Just like the opposites running wild outside, the opposites constantly streaming through life, the opposites present now that were he and Alan. Opposite in reactions.

Scott wasn't at all warm. He was frozen like the ice Kyrano put in their drinks on the really scorching days. But no, it may as well snow to complete the formula of cold things.

Virgil liked snow.

Gordon liked having fights in the snow, chucking snowballs here, there and everywhere, the occasional burst entering the house before receiving a warning to keep it outside.

Scott like seeing the smiles on their faces, and he knew John did too.

Screw the world; damn it all.

He tried to shake the thoughts from his head, getting up and rifling through the on board supplies until he finally found what he wanted, gradually realising it had been one of the first items he'd pulled out. How does one miss a blanket? He wanted to ask how does one live without a brother?

How does one live suddenly without two?

Or don't they?

As he sat back down next to Alan, he spread the blanket across them. The younger still made no notice he was there, no attempts at communications or inclinations that such would be his intent at any point. The blanket was probably more for him. Alan would likely kick it off with how warm he was, but the comfort could help towards something. Honestly, all training had abandoned him now. He didn't know what to do, or what he was doing.

Training stood for nothing after all, when you had no sense to go with it.

Talking of sense…

He hadn't considered quite how they were going to get home, not even when talking to John. The thought dawned upon him with the steady rising dawn, the slow change being the world's reassurance that nothing had ended. But _something_ had. That something was International Rescue, that something was a very close knit family who had already suffered too much, that something was actually _someone_.

His cold hand brushed over Alan's warm one as he tucked the blanket around the younger. Glazed eyes like perfect cherries looked at him, still wide and questioning, rimmed with confusion. Alan had been somewhere else, he'd been thinking of someone not here being there. Scott wondered what conversations he'd held in his head, what visions he'd convinced himself were real, and why he couldn't share them.

"You're back?" It shouldn't have needed to be a question. Alan's voice wavered as though Scott wasn't Scott. It was like he needed to check, needed to be certain he still had one brother on the ground with him.

He couldn't smile. He wanted to, but the movement was impossible. So he nodded and spoke softly, "And not going anywhere." Alan's head fell onto his shoulder, the younger's eyes flickering shut, tears rolling from them to hit his cold hands. Absently, his arm curled around Alan's shoulders, pulling the brother closer, breathing in whatever sense of life he could get.

In those moments, the world could do what it liked for all he cared, since he didn't care for the world anymore. He'd wait until they returned home, wait until he felt some reassurance that it was alright to crumble before he did so.

Damn. It. All.

There were times for giving up, and times for giving in. There were times for grieving and times for comforting another. There were times for holding on and times for letting go, but he didn't know what time this was.

He didn't know a thing.

Not one of them did.

* * *

Do you want a third part?


	3. Chapter 3

I just want to say a massive thank you to all of you readers, reviewers etc. I was amazed at the response this story has received so thank you very much, I've felt very privileged to read all your lovely reviews and see all the views, favourites, alerts etc. that this has received!

So, here's the third part.

P.S. If you are interested in t-shirts with quotes from both the original and new series, see the note at the end.

* * *

It was still lost to him.

The world was moving by, but he was standing still. It was like enduring a crash landing only to find yourself stuck stock to the ground, becoming firmly rooted like a newly growing tree. Yet, his entire life had been deracinated, to the point that it didn't feel right to even attempt to find your feet again.

He'd been home for hours now, but he'd yet to move from his room. He couldn't even remember _how_ he got home. But on the scale of things, it didn't matter. It was one of those trivial things, dismissible by the wave of a hand.

His mind was like a hurricane, images appearing all over the place as he walked. The echo of Gordon there, or Virgil over there, or the pair of them somewhere. Echoes too realistic to be bouts of memory, echoes like visions: visions close enough to touch and hold to make oneself whole again. Echoes and visions so real that the dead simply _could not_. Be. Dead.

Reality was harsh, unfair and cold.

Especially in the way it reminded you that what you wanted to be the imaginary, to be a fictitious dread of dreamspace, was indeed the stone truth of life.

The gentle tones of piano keys reached his ears and for a moment took him somewhere else. It took him to a world where you come home to the light piano playing which soothed whatever irate tale you had to share, leaving it on the backburner for some other time, the music lessening the flame like music with charms to soothe a savage beast.

But there was no music to soothe a savage beast called grief, resulting from a beast equally as unrestrained, by the name of death.

"Virgil."

"No." John's voice was as calm as ever. It was a trait of his to be the calm, the point in the very eye of the storm where nothing could be disturbed. Something which should be noted as a safe place, for holding John was like holding a key to the reins of destruction, and anything outside of his sphere was bound for disaster. "He was going through Virgil's collection. Once he found it he was determined to learn it."

"How long has he been there?" Scott wanted to know how long this music had been held from his ears. How long this reminder had been going on for, and how he'd missed it.

"About an hour." The younger answered, reverting his eyes back to the other blonde Tracy, who tapped absently at the keys, some sense of timing coming to him the more he repeated the piece. "He could do it, don't you think?"

There was no answer to that, because there wasn't anyone to answer it.

He had to go.

He'd had to pull himself from the room, because if he hadn't, he feared what harm he might cause - to Alan or the piano – in one of those unexpected moments when all you can see if pure blood red.

* * *

When he finally gave up, deciding he didn't have anything close to Virgil's talent, and was just destroying the sound of music to ones ears, he headed outside to the pool. The sun was out again now, shinning as brightly as usual. When they'd returned home the rain had followed, but the storm passed briefly, allowing the normal weather of the Island to return in abundance.

Alan wished they could have done the same.

The water gained a strange glow in the sunlight. Gordon had once suggested you could use that to tell the time. But then, Gordon had also suggested they make the pool wider, and buy some fish to keep in the house. Maybe buying the fish would be worthwhile?

He wasn't sure. His mind was full of too many questions to know all the answers. Some he could ignore, but others were too strong. Others were like asteroids burning up in the atmosphere.

It was like that constant question. The one that nags in your head of _'how would you like to die?'_ Or that one you couldn't not ask yourself in this rescue business, the question of _'will you live to grow old before you die?'_

He knew what an answer to that question was now, and it was one he would never let go of. One which would haunt him deep into his old days of age (if he reached them), and gnaw at his bones each surviving day, until it was twinned into them allowing his death to bring final end to that sick, repetitive question. Allowing grief to leave him, because he knew he didn't think he could ever be rid of it. It would chew and nibble at him until there was no Alan left, just a shadow, one which could live without the burdens of grief, without the memory of a tragic day.

Without registering his own footsteps, he wandered further until he was throwing pebbles and stones into the sea. The movement became violent, increasingly violent until his arm was too tired to lob the rocks into the deep and all point seemed to drain away - not that there had ever been any. It was something that passed the time, something that allowed him to curse his own idiocy, something to curse his brothers for dying and something that allowed him space, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to get rid of the crushing grief, and it never would be.

* * *

Jeff Tracy tossed the morning newspaper aside rather ungracefully. He had no interest in reading the repetitive story that he knew already through his sons first-hand accounts. He had no interest in reading the over exaggerated, incorrectly reported trash which some reporter had concocted, desperate to get a good story and some readership for their paper. He had no time for their hyperbolic ways of storytelling.

His sons had scattered themselves, the unity of the Tracy family seemingly broken. Since he'd first seen them home, he hadn't seen all three of them together in the same place. Three sons should be easier to keep track of: to that many parents would agree. But for Jeff, his head was still counting to five, searching for five, needing to know five different sets of details.

Three was too little.

It was like working on auto-pilot. Get up, go to bed. Do this, do that. Nothing was really coming from his thoughts anymore, as though some switch had been clicked in his head. He was working on autopilot, Scott was working off something between automatic and manual, something Jeff had never seen.

"What are you doing?"

"Tidying."

"The house is tidy."

"That doesn't matter." Scott was moving extremely quickly, almost too much for Jeff to keep his eyes on him. His eldest son narrowly avoided knocking John from his feet as he exited the lounge, leaving the pair to watch the path he'd taken.

"Is he tidying?"

"Apparently so." He didn't sit at his desk. Somehow that would be wrong. It would be wrong to sit there and look at the photos of his sons. So he sat on the sofa, his back to the wall. John remained in the doorway, his face unreadable, but Jeff was his father and that stood for something. "What is it, son?"

The question snapped John from whatever thought he was mulling over and pulled his gaze. Still the space monitors face remained one of those pictures you couldn't figure out. Something, some words, seemed to hang on his lips, but they did not form his answer, the blonde changing his mind before he spoke. "Nothing."

Jeff wondered if John really expected him to believe that.

* * *

The house was too claustrophobic. He'd spent hours inside and decided it was finally time to venture outside. The sun beat down on the gold sand, sand that John could only think of flooding through an hour glass like a silent, undefeatable enemy. Alan was sat by the edge of the land, the water lapping over his feet. But what John instantly noticed, was what he held.

It was worrying. It was worrying when anyone you knew so well didn't appear as their normal self.

Alan must have noticed him from the corner of his eyes, but made no move to change his pattern of actions as the elder sat next to him.

"I thought you didn't smoke."

"I don't." Alan's reflexes had slowed as he pulled the cigarette from the younger's grip and tossed it to the waves in front of them.

"Don't look at me like that. You're only doing it out of grief."

"I am not."

"Alan, you grew up with a family of smokers, and chose not to follow that path. We all know you well enough to know you don't smoke." The slightly childish edge had ever lessened in Alan. Gordon had encouraged it, approving of his stick to younger methods of getting his way. This childish edge had done nothing for the younger's emotion and left them now as a mess, a jumble which the astronaut didn't know how to sort, let alone get a grip on. "Besides, you were doing it all wrong. I'm surprised you weren't coughing."

"What do you want?"

"Nothing, Alan. Nothing."

"You don't even want your brothers back?"

"Of course I do."

"I keep thinking of them. The island is just full of memories and ties which link us to them." Alan knew as soon as he looked to John that if the elder was listening, that was it. He didn't seem there. John Tracy was sat on the beach, but Alan doubted his thoughts placed him there. Some skip seemed to have occurred, and the John who always listened seemed to be having trouble in remaining undistracted.

"Something about that palm tree particularly interesting?"

"Sorry?" Suddenly the other was back, but his mind seemed to take time to fully register Alan's words, as though it was still attempting to pull the other back to something else. Something darker. "The palm tree? No."

It was worrying. It was worrying when anyone you knew so well didn't appear as their normal self.

"Are you alright?"

John nodded. It was a lie.

Alan was good at lying. John was not. In fact, nor were Scott or Virgil. Gordon had the talent for it and Alan had picked it up from his direct elder, who (probably to their father's displeasure) had been overjoyed to teach him the art. But out of them all, John was the worst liar. The best listener, but the worst liar.

If anyone was going to be scatty, it was he or Gordon, not John. It just _didn't_ happen. Each member of the Tracy family was moulded into a certain place, a certain role, and this wasn't right. None of it was, but it was happening. It was happening, when it just didn't.

When it just _shouldn't_.

* * *

"Scott."

"Yes, father?"

"You've tided your room already."

"I'll do it again." He was desperately trying to ignore the weakness of his muscles and hide the tremors. He was running around the house like a child or a firefly, burning his way through the house doing anything he could think of. Tidying was one, cleaning was another, just anything, anything that drew his mind's focus, anything that made him feel _useful_. Anything that made him feel as though he was helping; to make up for the time he couldn't.

"Why don't you spend some time with your brothers?"

Of all the things he could do, that was at the bottom of his list. He had no idea how to be around them right now. He wasn't sure who he should be, or how he should act nor what to say. No topic of conversation came to mind as valid. Talking about the weather was as pointless as avoiding acknowledging what had occurred. He didn't even know how to say that.

"It might help you all."

Scott desperately wished that could be true. He wanted it to be. He wanted nothing more than his family to be put back together.

It was a shame _pieces_ of the _puzzle_ were _missing_.

Not just missing, but _broken_.

* * *

Alan hated analysing things. He preferred to work from his instincts, from what he knew and what he felt. Now he stood looking up the wall of the house for anyway in which he could scale it to the roof.

"Tell me you're not thinking of climbing the house." John frowned upon him from the balcony, ignoring the glint of suggestion in his eyes.

"I could do it."

"Alan." The elder chastised, but it sounded like a bundle of exasperation. "It's dangerous."

"Everything's dangerous." Alan, of them all, had always chosen the dangerous past times. Where one might choose reading, he chose racing. Where one may choose conversation, he chose climbing. He'd always been the wild child so to speak. John thought he could see this now as Alan's outlet. The astronaut was using risk and all its wiles to cope and compensate. The blonde only sighed as Alan started his venture.

"What are you doing?" Scott's voice echoed from behind them and Alan pushed himself away from the wall.

"Taking my mind off things."

"By putting yourself at risk of falling and breaking your back?"

"Scott, leave it." John interjected. "He's fine. We're all grieving, none of us our thinking straight."

"We're all going through the same thing, you don't see-"

"No we're not!"

"Sorry?"

"You don't understand anything!"

"I understand clearly."

"Scott." John shook his head, rushing down the steps to try and push between his brothers. A storm was brewing over the island again. A storm mixed from chemicals caused masculine nature and death. A storm named grief and destruction, one set on causing loss and strife. One that was about to start now, even though the skies were blue and clear. His interjections were pointless, his attempts to remove the youngest from the situation. Alan was a trigger, and Scott was a bullet. The pair of them were clashing, and John wouldn't see another catastrophe occur.

"No, you don't."

"Alan, please-"

"Stop it, all of you."

"Dad-"

"We've got enough to deal without you going at each other's throats." He seemed saddened to have caught them arguing, turning with some linger of disappointment. Grief swallowed people whole and it seemed to be doing so for them. Scott storm off like thunder after John's shake of the head, dismissing whatever tumult could have continued. Alan writhed in his grasp.

"Let me go."

"Alan, no. We need to talk." As tears pricked in the corner of the blonde's eyes, John wanted nothing but to cry with him. "You're alright, I've got you."

"It's not alright. Everything's gone wrong. We should have done things differently."

"The past is a foreign country, Alan. They do things differently there."

"Will we ever do things the way again?"

"Maybe." He knew nothing other than his own distance, but he hoped that Alan could find some way to believe him. The past always ended up as distant memories, as bleak visions of what was and hinders to what could be. But the past was also the best way to hold yourself to life, to all those memories you want to remember and those you'd rather forget. It was everything you wanted to hold onto and everything you were desperate to let go of. "Maybe one day we'll go back. One day when we're all strong enough to move from our grief."

"We can't let it go."

"We don't have to. We just have to push forward."

It was never as simple as that: it just couldn't be. Though he thought something could come of it. Something could come of putting one foot in front of the other eventually.

They _had_ to get somewhere.

* * *

"Scott, we need you."

"Why?"

"We just do."

"Why, John?" He needed to know, the younger didn't want to tell. The background wouldn't matter if the elder didn't know. John shouldn't have taken his eyes from the younger, Jeff shouldn't have left them alone and Scott should have been there.

"Just come with me?" Eventually the elder rose to his feet, following the blonde through the house and down to the hangars. Scott had had enough risk for a lifetime. Alan had not.

"Alan, please get down." Jeff Tracy didn't want another son to disappear. Enough of their 'normal' life had already been gouged from them meaning anything more would feel anything but fair, if loss ever did. Water and fire, rain and sun, all the opposites were there, and all the sparks had ignited something. They were all drenched in oil just waiting for a lighter to fall.

"Alan?" Who else would it be? Scott Tracy seemed to be returning to him now. _The_ Scott Tracy who cared and worried, who got back up somehow when he crashed down. Whatever depersonalisation he had swiftly became constricted, allowing a true personality to push its way forward. Thunderbird Two was no great height, but height enough to hurt should one fall. And fall Alan could. "Alan, what are you doing? Get down."

"I want to be up here."

"I don't care. Get down now!"

"It's my fault." There were the bolts of lightning again. The bolts that shattered trees and deeply affected them. They were thunder, not lightning. They didn't do the damage, they cleared it. They cleared it for everyone, but they hadn't cleared it for themselves. They had no idea how to deal with this, they were in too deep with no shared understanding of each other for the first time in their lives.

"Sorry?" John couldn't believe what he was hearing, his sense of distance pushed aside, but there. That very sense telling him he could not be hearing the truth.

"It's my fault."

"How? How's it your fault?"

"Talk to us, Alan."

"I should have convinced Gordon to follow you out. But he wanted to get more people out." Two sides to every story, to every coin. This was the side untold, the side that portioned blame if such a thing existed, elsewhere. The side Alan only knew, confined to his mind alone and eating at it. This was what he blamed himself for, this was what he remembered. Alan had always been the child to take risks. Gordon tried and it backfired, so now Alan was seeking those risks again as a way to be close. "I wanted to get him out."

"You couldn't." For a moment John wondered what Scott had thought of, but the elder continued in his fashion, taking a statement one should be saddened by and twisting it to his choosing. "But that shows what Gordon was like. When he was convinced of doing something no one could stop him. And that's what we should remember, Alan, of Virgil and Gordon." There were enough, one just had to be able to think of them, one just had to hold onto them and hope they would not drive them to madness if they could no let go of the worst. "The moments like that: good moments. Moments that show how amazingly talented and human are brothers were."

"How good their hearts were." The whisper, the ear silent whisper that struck nerves in all of them.

"It's still my fault."

"Just get down here Alan, before you give father a heart attack, cause John to go grey and scar me for life."

"Come on. Give me your hand." Risk. That was what their job was. That was what they had all accepted without question when their father proposed the idea to them. That was what they had all considered to be their weakness until it never failed them. Chance, luck, they had nothing to do with it. As a family they took risks, and as a family they paid off. Their skills were greater and their ideas better. It was the one thing that couldn't hurt them; _error_ was the thing that could.

As soon as his brother was safe, it was as though Scott stopped breathing, stopped existing. Back came the mist of trying to be someone you aren't, of trying to cut yourself out of a world which hurt you, to be someone else in order to correct the damage that had been done. Without so much as a word, he spun on his hill and started across the hangar. He knew what he was doing and that was would hurt him when the mists of grief moved away. The wrench may as well been a dagger to their hearts, the scratching of the metal and paintwork like nails on glass.

"Scott!"

"What are you doing?" John looked at him in complete shock, Alan hovering behind him with his mouth gaping. They were all reacting differently, but none quite so fiercely. John was falling distant, Jeff was hiding it, Alan was sensitive to it, and he was blazing through it.

"I'll speak to him." The patriarch followed him out, leaving the blonde pair to hover in the large cavern, Thunderbirds Two and Four behind them, as though they weren't already reminded enough.

* * *

It barely made sense to head towards Thunderbird One, but that was where he went, his father following every step. The logical part of his mind shrieked and hollered, desperate to be let free to revive Scott Tracy, not the shadow he was making himself. But he refused. He just couldn't be Scott Tracy, because he'd lost too much, because he blamed himself, because he had no roads left to take, no places to turn just a blank crossroad surrounded by never ending routes to the past.

The past he just couldn't face.

"Virgil loved that machine." He knew that, really he did, and he loved it too. He already regretted the action he just couldn't voice that. He couldn't dwell on that, because that was accepting, acknowledging everything. His brothers were gone: those machines were just taunting reminders well placed to remind him they could have left sooner and been elsewhere rescuing more lives than those lost and keeping their own.

"That's all it is."

"Not to him it wasn't."

"I'm not going to put it in a glass cabinet."

"I'm not saying you should. I just thought…" Jeff wasn't going to argue with him. He wasn't going to let something fester away beneath an already infected issue. Tracy Island was soon becoming the burning tower block, the hangars replacing the basement entrapment. He could picture it, and he hated it. He was worn down and tired, and didn't want to chip anymore off that. If he knew anything, it was that grief – in its many forms – could be like the worst illnesses, deadly contagious and extremely catching, easily changeable from one person to another, allowing ones grief to become theirs until there was no difference between their feelings.

"That we'd treasure it like one of Alan's trophies, or Gordon's medals?" Scott swallowed. That was a crack in the iron armour, the first splinter needed for the rest to eventually shatter. "I can't look at it."

"Then don't."

"How can I?" Words fell on deaf ears. Usually they were the first senses to go in most people. Stop yourself from listening, cut off from what will be announced and it isn't real. "He said he was right behind us. He promised."

"Son." This should never have happened. Not now, nor ever, but it had. It had happened, it had happened when they thought they would be infinite, believed themselves to be invincible, allowed themselves to feel immortal and undefeatable. They'd never lost, and he'd never reminded then they could. He was as much to blame. "You can't save everyone."

"They were your sons too. I haven't seen you cry."

"That's not the only way of showing grief."

"You can't."

"We're not talking about me."

"That's the problem." Scott's rising infuriation was like a ticking time bomb. His anger was his own, directed to himself because of his own helplessness, his own lack of action. This was his (very bad) way of seeking to make up for that. "We never will. You'll bottle up just like you did with mum, because you felt you couldn't talk to any of us."

"Scott-"

"Don't do that." Placating what a technique which had worked well, but was unlikely to work again. None of his sons were children anymore, but as a parent it was often hard to accept the aging of your children. "Don't you dare. I am not watching this family break up, because you can't talk to us. Or don't think you can. It's different this time. We're all old enough to cope."

"You call this coping?"

"Yes, I do." It was anything but. It was everything he thought and nothing he believed. No one could cope by shutting away what they need, those who could were almost sentenced to suffer rebounds later. Jeff knew: he'd done it. He would not have one nor any of his sons doing the same. John had rounded the corner, standing in the aftermath of their discussion, Alan loitering behind him.

"Sorry, can I have a word with Scott?" Jeff lingered in the doorway, his hand on John's shoulder before he exited with his youngest son, leaving the pair of them in silence.

Grief smothered silence.

John wasn't sure what he'd expected, if he had anything at all. When you were alone in space after just receiving the most devastating news of your life, which you never could have believed was possible, the question is what to expect next. It's the only one that can cross back and forth into your mind as he could the floor space, with it still not being enough to douse whatever flames are still sparking or calm whichever storm should take its time to brew.

Those thoughts can only be left to stew until you reach one which no amount of mind power nor will can crack like a weak twig. One which is like the boulder of stone altering the river's course.

"John, why are you not all over the place?" He had no explanation for what he was feeling. He had no sense of control over this. This was not loneliness which one could surpass for the sake of duty or with the knowledge that you are where few have ever been, least of all of so long in one duration. It was a question he could not give Scott an answer to regardless of his usual ability to have whatever details were needed.

"I don't know."

"Shouldn't you be?"

"I don't know."

"Is that all you can say? All you know?"

"If you're the expert, you tell me." The eldest said nothing, the non-dethroned brother, who never had need to fear for his place in the family. Whose change of place would never happen, least he should lose them all. He gave answer to his own question, more for his sake. He was the individual who felt it compulsory to be able to give answers, when to others it was probably of little matter. "Your brain works off impulse and emotion, not reason."

"Interesting." Scott's voice dripped with sarcasm, a tone he didn't recognise almost as much as the brother who wielded it. Still, there was a reason he dealt with his brothers problems, a reason he was their ear to talk to and shoulder to cry on. He hated talking about himself and that was what he would not do.

"We need to do something about dad."

"Like what?" The other asked, sounding as though he was on a train which had just collided into a set of buffers. "He's said barely anything to me and even less to you. He doesn't talk about things like this." He didn't, most likely wouldn't, and John was going the same way, which to some extent he felt increased his resolve to do something.

"He had a bad feeling about that rescue."

"And he wasn't wrong. What do you want to do? Give him a reward?" Scott seemed to have completely lost his control and cool head. John shook his head in disbelief. Grief changed people, grief caused families too much trouble and it was doing just that for them. But it was swallowing Scott whole.

"What on earth has got in to you?"

"Me?" A part of him howled for him to lash back, to say things as they were, but he would not. His restraint went further than that of wolves for blood and conflict was the one thing he didn't lust after.

"I'm not arguing with you."

"Do you not care?"

"Of course I do."

"Then why can't you and dad show that? Why are you hiding it away like it's something to be ashamed of or something to forget?"

"Scott, you're talking rubbish."

"They were our brothers!"

"You don't think I know that?" If it had been a shouting match there would have been a clear victor. If there had ever been a time to cry, it would be now, John ruled for surety it would be, but he couldn't, just as he hadn't since his breakdown in solitude up in the deeps of space where none could hear. "I wasn't there, Scott, but I still lost them."

There was no harsher truth than that.

* * *

Solitude was John's thing. Scott wondered if he was beginning to see just why the other kept it as a companion. It was undemanding, unconditional and unjudging. For those reasons he just may keep it for himself. Time passed you by with the merest of snags.

Emotions were the cut off of all reason and logic. He'd never been the ideas greatest friend, but now he would give anything to have them back in full clarity. He was all over the place, unsure of what he was doing and not thinking through what he was saying. He was adding salt to a newly stitched wound, threatening to tear it again.

"I'm sorry, Virgil." The breath he took scarcely seemed fulfilling enough. His head found its way into his hands and tears to his eyes. Tears he no longer understood. He'd cried for too long to have any left. You'd think he'd expressed the grief he had, but it had dug deep within, poised to stay fixed there, like the path of blood to the heart. "Gordon, I'm so sorry."

"Grief talks to you, 'ey?" John sat beside him, their eyes meeting. The younger looked free of any malice or argument. He was calm. The calm posed to a wrecked boat, which would only last so long before it too broke. "Or should I say guilt eats at you?"

"Why are you talking to me?"

"Because I'm your brother and I care about you." It was an admittance, one of the first few the family would face from all corners. One step closer for them all to something seemingly impossible. International Rescue may breathe again one day, but first they had to. They had things to get off their chests, things to be rid of first. They had things to hold on to things they needed to recognise through a process bound to take time, one they had unwillingly been enrolled on from the moment of the fall. "And because it helps."

"I'm sorry."

"Me too."

"For?"

"For not reacting."

Emotions weren't always choice. Grief was the only one which ensured that, the only one which conscripted unthought-of through actions, unmoderated thoughts. It was one which no one could learn to master, one which no techniques could help every living being through their different and complicated pattern of individual grief. Families were more likely to clash because all members were more likely to be different.

Those differences had to go; those boundaries had to give.

Scott shook his head. "That's not worth apologising for. You can't help something like that."

"Got you." Scott didn't get it. John gave him a light smile to show he'd been attempting his hand at joking, trying a turn at humour. Not one of them had the ability to replace Gordon, but that didn't mean they couldn't laugh. They doubted he'd have wanted it that way. "You thought about something else for a minute."

The take-off of a Thunderbird could resonate for miles within the time they spent sat in the bittersweet environment of silence. Night slowly drew in closer, slower than either had ever known. It came as a certainty, but when was simply an anomaly. "Come on. Alan was asking for you."

"Another apology." John halted in the doorway, his silhouette casting shadows across the room as the edges of sunrays hit his figure. Scott didn't think he was seeing double or triple, though he didn't trust his eyes to see things clearly anymore.

"He doesn't want one. Just his brother."

Scott Tracy. That was all the younger wanted. He'd already lost Virgil and Gordon, losing another brother just didn't appear fair, right. Losing another brother, because that brother lost himself, didn't seem like a justification.

"Grief does funny things to people."

"Life does."

* * *

He looked forward to the night. There was something calming about it, something simple, continuous. Nights end could bring days break and days end could bring nights beginning – nothing ruptured or fell out of place, it just happened.

He rarely had an issue with sleeping, but there was a pressing one now.

His feet carried themselves to the lounge where the eldest sat drinking wine and smoking. Alan watched them. John – now the middle child, as strange a thought as that be – looked exhausted, a guise seldom seen on him despite his late night stakes to gaze at stars. Tonight his eyes looked not that way, but downward to the floor. There was no conversation between them, for neither brother appeared to really be there, nor did either notice his entrance to the room. He sat with them, that being seen at least, nevertheless a grasp on realism still seemed lacking. He poured himself a glass though never touched it again. The impulse that made him do it had faded and the incessant want for a drink passed as quickly as it had come.

There was something between them. Some bond or way which meant they didn't have to speak. An understanding, no matter how small, was present, and it alone was all they needed to hold a conversation. A tap of the chairs arm here, a sigh there and silence – all were decipherable in some manner.

Scott had finally sat down, finally allowed himself some time to clear his head and avoid clouding it with restless over-activity all comprised of little meaning. His mind could once again think freely and begin to consider the numerous topics to which it debated.

John was another puzzle, a different board game entirely. He still could not shed a tear, far too like their father in his way of grief. He'd built himself a life and it had come crashing down, shattering upon him to remind him how human he was. He could live up in space for all the time he liked, and he could watch the stars whilst thinking of ways to avoid their eventual burnout, but he would never be a part of it.

Space was something different, something disparate to him. He was human, thus mortal, and the reminder he had just received to this was a devastating blow. Not one, but two. Not a near miss, but a tragedy, and that had reminded him exactly of his own impermanence.

"I didn't know grief would be…"

"Like fear?" Alan's voice was quiet, but in the silence of the house it cried out like a scream. "I feel it too."

"What are you all doing up?" They should have expected it to be so, expected for him to be there, for like father, like son was the way of the Tracy bloodline.

"We couldn't sleep."

"Too much to sleep on?" If anything the question was directed to John.

"Yeah. Something like that."

He didn't need to say what he was thinking of. It was an easy guess. The same shadow clouded all their thoughts and the same darkness blackened all their minds to any other consideration. There was no conclusion to this, no happy ending to this one.

No one could reach them out here, out on their island which only they could call home. No one could reach them with their opinions or lies, their unknowing commiserations or provoked glances. Here they were safe and free, safe and together, and together they could stay regardless of what the world willed.

"It's wrong." Too many things seemed wrong for him to guess what Alan sought them to know. "To move on."

"No. It's wrong to forget them." The words of their father sounded rehearsed, as though he'd said them before, or rather, heard them before, been sat in their very position and listened to another speak to him an unknown truth or unconsidered thought. "They wouldn't want you to live like that."

"I don't know how I want to live." Overwhelmed like such none would, however it was harder still to know how someone who loved you would seek you to spend your days without them. You would never know if they highly expected you to live in mourning, or burned with desire to see you sweep through it like a breeze across a desert.

Neither seemed possible, but until now, _nothing_ had seemed _impossible_.

"We can't stop International Rescue." The suggestion seemed absurd, an illogically drawn conclusion shown through a statement with little meaning, yet it was something. "It's a legacy." John's word prompted something. "Think about it. Should we stop something they gave their lives believing in?"

"No." His own choice of words surprised him. After all this, the least they should think of doing is repeating such a dangerous path, though Scott theorised then it was what had kept them going up to now. Their family had knitted itself into one stitch, allied itself to the people of the world and declared war against disaster. They'd stolen too much from it, but there was still more to take, a greater prise to claim by commemorating their fallen comrades: immortalising their brothers.

"We should make this decision another time. When you're all more sound minded." Jeff Tracy was certainly not within that state and within his time, he done many things out of grief-pushed impulse only to regret them later. If there was one thing this bump was going to cause, it would not be a repeat of his path. Grief never became easier to deal with. One would think that (like wisdom and experience) it was something you could improve with time, although the truth would always be that it was something you could never shake off or evade, never beat or destroy, but something you could stand and face until you found a way around.

That way could be over the tallest mountain or across the widest sea, but it would be there.

"That could be years." It could, John knew it could. They all did.

"Yes."

"Alan?" The youngest had drifted closer to the doors of the balcony, though not away from them. Their conversation was clear to him, every word like crystal. Part of him believed he was back by the building, back huddled away in Thunderbird Two, where all noises tried to drown him and one thing stopped him from going under. One thing, one thought, one person. Now, they were dwindling. Though still excessively loud, though still distinguishable down to the very last syllable, to the final vibration, they were fading, lessening and becoming simple sounds.

Becoming normal, whatever that be.

"What is it?" The patriarch made his way closer, following every move of the younger. Scott looked to John, and he looked back, some vague curiosity on his face, some sense of knowing and a glaze of worry. Scott wondered what John perceived of their feelings, what he picked up on simply through knowing his own.

"I thought I saw something." The younger made his way out onto the balcony, his family following. No eye contact was broken between Alan and the twinkling points above. The light waves provided the only sound, something akin to a lullaby; something akin to the unknown and the known, the future and the past. The stars were reminders. Reminders that they had life spans, ones they could not estimate like one could constellations. "Like a shooting star."

"They're not uncommon." John answered to Alan's light mutterings, unsure if it had been an invitation for conversation or not, but felt that the need had been there. The need for them to have words bouncing back and forth, the need for them to have a return of any form of unity.

"Beautiful, isn't it." The eyes of the other Tracy's turned to him as though he had spoken out of line or as a stranger in a court. "What? I'm not John, does that mean I can't appreciate the sky?"

"All we need is music." A soundtrack of the serene nature which Virgil could compose from a few simple notes, which Gordon could add to with ranging tones of voice, which all of them could enjoy whatever their action be.

"Always late at night." Scott gave his agreement, recalling so many times when the piano bade him from the world of sleep.

"Or after a rescue." Jeff added, eliciting his own thoughts. Hours or days or longer could have passed with the air of the contented silence. Not one without problems, but one which diminished their effects, one which offered some slight release from the harsh constraints of loss and a chance for a new nights cessation to play a different record or swim a different length.

"Can we sleep out here?"

"I don't see why not." Was the patriarch answer to the youngest's query. It wouldn't be comfortable, but the sky was offering them all something. The light air, the sea breeze - all of it was encompassed in one place, just as they were.

Alan's head fell onto Scott's shoulder, his eyelids closing over as an arm wrapped around his back. John wiped at his eyes, something finally giving, bending and snapping. Jeff stood behind them as though a shield from the world, a protective sphere within a wider one. One that blocked them from all but what they wanted, one that had always been there even if not acknowledged. A sphere that appeared when it was needed and vanished when there was no reason. Vanished, but never vanquished.

In time they'd all find a way to sleep. They had a long way to go, but they'd get there. In time they would all find a way to live without looking over their shoulders expecting to see someone, or hearing distant echoes of voices. They'd learn to live without looking back, learn to look forward and face what came towards them. They'd do it together, missing brothers and all. They wouldn't forget, but nor would they dwell. Their time would less be spent chewing over what they could have changed or never done, neither contemplating what they could do to be rid of it.

That wasn't truly what they needed. You could never be rid of grief, not when it saw the closest things to your heart. Virgil and Gordon would always be there, somewhere. They would find a way to live with memories as their solace and dreams as their escape.

In dreams, nothing real mattered; in memories, nothing was taken away.

No one died.

And the imaginary were always real.

* * *

Thank you so much for reading, I hope you can have some closure from this, because I never intended to cause as much turmoil to your emotions as I think I might have in some of you.

For those interested in t-shirts, I would need to know what quote you wanted, what colour t-shirt, what size (uk sizes, but I can convert them if you let me know) and roughly where you live for postage. Prices – I think – could work out relatively cheap if you are interested.

Back in reference to this story, in case anyone is curious, there is a small compilation of notes from things within the chapters.

Notes (from all chapters);

[Anything in italics isn't owned by me.]

Chapter One;

The main idea of the building collapse chapter one – Research came from events from the two novels _('The Tower'_ and _'The Glass Inferno'_ ) combined into the film, _'The Towering Inferno'_ and the real life _Ronan Point_ disaster in East London.

Chapter Two;

Notions of grief were based on real experience. References to effects also came from my mother's numerous books on the subject due to her job and what I know from working around psychology. There are also some useful links and research papers out there. If anyone is interested in the links for them or titles to the numerous books, message me.

Chapter Three;

"Fox found in your place" – Idea that someone sly has switched with someone trustworthy. Also a lyric from _'Black Flies'_ by Ben Howard.

Stuck Stock – Original meaning of Stock as in Old English 'Stoc(c)'.

"Echoes too realistic to be bouts of memory…" - Based of Nihilistic delusions (seeing things to the contrary belief) or Palinopsic visions (seeing things after they have left). Nihilistic originates from the 19th Century Latin for 'Nothing' (Nihil). Palinopsia is originally Greek for 'Again Seeing'.

"Stone truth of life" – Taken from the metaphoric meaning of stone. Of some title relation to Steve Austin's _'Stone Cold Truth of Life',_ but of no affiliation to the book.

"Music with charms to soothe a savage beast" – derives from the original _"Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Brest"_ from William Congreve's _'The Mourning Bride'_.

"Will you live to grow old before you die?" - Part drawn from: _"Yes, but I mean do you think he will live and get to come back home and grow old before he dies?"_ from _'The Second Coming of Age'_ by Apostle Walk. Also similar to a lyric in the song _'Echo'_ by Foxes.

"Tossed it to the waves in front of them" – Can I just say, for the environments sake, I don't recommend chucking cigarettes into the water, and that this was done for creative purposes only.

 _"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."_ – _'The Go-Between'_ by L.P. Hartley.

"I didn't know grief would be…" "Like fear?" – This can derive from a quote by C.S. Lewis, "No one ever told me grief felt so like fear." Many people can also feel that the two collide and it is one thing that can slow your recovery, because you begin to fear allowing yourself to grieve.

* Disclaimer: I don't claim to own any of the above listed material as borrowed sources.

Thank you all so much for reaching, I hope you liked/enjoyed (wrong words I know) it and have some form of closure. x


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